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Dammit! Why the **** would you trade a lights out closer like Gonzalez (who you've been developing as your closer for the past few years) instead of a guy like Maholm who you can easily replace with all the other young starters we have. Maholm is nothing special compared to some of the other guys we have. Right now we have Snell, Duke, Burnett, Van Benschotten, Chacon (right?) and Brad Lincoln. We shouldn't have traded Perez because we didn't get anything good for him (Nady? Come on.) Why not keep Perez, then trade Maholm for LaRoche? Nope. Instead we totally ****ed up so that we can't afford to trade Maholm and we end up losing a great young closer in Gonzales.

My feeling on it is that yes we had to give up a good player to get a good player but the player we get not only boosts our everyday power production but will allow other players to see better pitches. The everyday effect of a power hitter I think outweighs that of a closer. Especially when we have an abundance of bullpen guys to fill in, not only Torres but Grabow was an effective setup guy that is still relatively young and could grow into the closer's role along with alot of other bullpen guys up and comming. I just think that the benifits outweigh the costs. To get a guy like Laroche wasnt going to come cheap and we werent going to be able to get one in FA with the price hike so overall I think the deal was pretty good!

"Racing doesn't teach a lesson. Nor do most racers. Many of them can't even tell you why they're in the cockpit. They don't know. Racing isn't what they do. It's who they are."